Remember, the previous Ones chose the 23 people to repopulate Zion and then they did so. There is nothing to say that after he chose them, he stuck around or that he or they knew he was the One. After being chosen, they wouldn't have memory of their last life coz that'd just be catastrophic coz they'd realise it was a loop. He prophesized his return and that's how the prophecy was handed down. People may have known him but Morpheus says they have fought the machines for 100 years. The machines after the last reload would have given time for a rebuild of Zion before they may have attacked again so it's more than 100 years.
Originally posted by Elite13
The current inhabitants have been around a lot longer then 100 years. Look at how many people are in Zion! Not all of them can be unplug. Doesn't Morpheus say something like their are 10,000 machines digging to Zion, one for each inhabitant? I do not know the exact number he says but it is a lot.
250,000 machines. One for every man, woman and child in Zion. Sounds like the thinking of a machine to me.
T-shirt> The current city of Zion is around 100 years old (Morpheus’ speech in Reloaded). We’ve discussed why the fifth one didn’t leave a warning to Neo, why the fourth didn’t leave a warning to the fifth etc.
The Architect tells us, that the One must choose 23 people from THE MATRIX. So after Zion is destroyed, and it’s every (!) inhabitant killed, the One “frees the first of us” (Morpheus in M1). And they REBUILD Zion (Architect in Reloaded).
The 250.000 people in Zion today are descendants from these 24 and earlier freed minds, plus new freed minds.
So why didn’t the 24 new inhabitants leave a message? The 23 that the One releases don’t know anything, as they’re from the actual Matrix.
So the real question is: Why didn’t Neo’s predecessors leave a warning for the next One?
Maybe the dissemination of “the code” he “carries” erases his mind? Maybe the previous Ones realised, that the only way to keep humanity alive, is to allow for this other system of control? What is their choice? The door to the right saves humanity, the door to the left makes humanity extinct. Why put that burden on the next One? Letting him/her(?) know that there really IS no choice?
It’s about choice. The Merovingian even tells us this. “No, wrong. Choice is an illusion between those with power (The Architect) and those without (The One).” Neo, having broken the illusion of the Matrix in M1, simple went further and broke the illusion which none of his predecessors could look past.
As for the council. None of those are 100 years old. Harmann would have to be 111 to be one of the original 23 freed minds.